Yet,Yellowstoneis not necessarily a pinnacle of the true Western.
However, their intentions are muddied by the growing war between the Mormon religion and Wild West culture.
In fact, they veer more towards soap operas than true Westerns.
Looking back overYellowstone’sfive seasons, the biggest obstacle for the show’s “Western-ness” has been John Dutton.
With superstar Kevin Costner in this leading role, it seems as though SheridanwantedYellowstoneto revolve around the Dutton patriarch.
He is the ultimate cowboy and the sun around which the other characters revolve.
There are heroes and villains, intense shootouts, and violence around every corner.
AlthoughAmerican Primevalalso boasts a strong ensemble of characters, they are not weighed down by modern archetypesor ideas.
They are truly Western.
Westerns are very hard to get right in the modern day.
Generally,successful Westerns rely on the fact that the Wild West was a different time.
It was a brutal era full of feuding groups and hard-won survival.
Their problems simply do not align with those of men from the 1850s.
Thus, the Western genre is firmly rooted in the past.
As hard asYellowstonemay try, it cannot evoke the same over-the-top violent atmosphere asAmerican Primeval.
It has expanded into a franchise with spin-offs such as1883and1923, and an upcoming sequel series is in development.
